What really happens behind the scenes.
We sometimes get comment that it is hard to contact us by telephone. That’s true. The telephone is not the best means of contacting busy technicians who are glued to their computer screens. However, when you (or we) place ‘the call’, the ‘need’ is to speak to someone. That need often outweighs the value of the matter being followed up. That is, the emotional weight of the situation shifts to the need to talk to someone. If that emotional need is not satisfied, we feel rejected or anxious or just plain annoyed. I know because it happens to me as well. Or at least it used to.
So what is going on when you can’t talk to someone in support right away? Possibly they are solving a Mission Critical task, have three phone lines in use, and twelve active web connections open. Or perhaps they are working on installing a software upgrade or new server. So, you get Voice mail and the anxiety builds.
Would it help if all calls could get through? Yes and No. The emotional weight would be lifted, but the cost would be extended delays in solution. This is because the emotional weight tends to be dumped during a support call.
It becomes a question of balance, judgement and trust.
Balance. Only someone who has oversight of all system status will have the balance to prioritise faults. When you or I experience a problem with something we want to use, the emotional response is narrowly focused.
Judgement. The SYSop is the best placed person to judge the critical nature of an issue for 2 reasons. First, they know the likely cause, cure and duration of an event from years of experience. Secondly, they are uniquely placed to provide a balanced view of the situation in context of the entire site.
Trust. Unless you are new to a business, you should be able to determine from past experience if you can trust in their performance. Most likely, the problem you are experiencing is sudden and unexpected. Step back from it and you can unload some of the anxiety you feel by recognising that normal service will return. Armed with this information, you can assist the process of recovery by doing some work on the matter before calling support. Did you just change something? Are your friends/workmates experiencing the problem also?
We are all human and our emotions matter, your’s and mine. However, a unique feature of emotions is that we choose to have them. Really, we do.
Consider why you feel the distress in a situation and you will realise that is has nothing to do with the facts. Facts are just that, observations of events. They have no emotional weight. The deadline/sale/upgrade that is at risk is also unweighted emotionally, it will happen or not regardless of how we feel about it. We can choose not to be disturbed and calmly deal with the situation. This will keep our minds clear and help resolve the challenge; or importantly find an alternative if the situation is one of those rare extended events.
The reason I am writing this is because I recently had my emotions tuned to something very trivial. We were asked for a fix to a situation a customer was in as a result of some changes they had made. The work was done professionally and promptly. What happened next? Absolutely nothing. Weeks later, the work remained unused. Their emotional need had been solved and passed onto us. If I had thought more about it at the time, I would have realised that the issue was not a priority. The customer at the time was anxious to resolve their problem, mainly because they were dealing with something not well understood. That converted to anxiety, a call to support and diversion of efforts from work in hand.
Was availability of ready support on the ‘phone a good thing? You be the judge.
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